Reformatted and now saying my Windows not genuine!!

[lisa.cleverley]

Hi all,

I reformatted at about 3pm this afternoon and after I've just finished putting all my info back on the computer (just now!) it finally tells me after that my copy of windows is not genuine!

What's going on? My Windows is genuine and it now won't let me get into my computer at all. Just Firefox, the rest is blocked out. No Windows button, no nothing.

If I phone Sony am I going to be penalised for reformatting and pushed into buying a product key? I hope not. Is there anything I can do my end about this?

I can't believe it's just told me this and locked me out after I've been working hours on end to get it how it was before! Argghh what a day!

Thanks,
Lisa

[cabbagekitten]

thats unbelievable! did u delete the partition as well? (7-10GB)?

[lisa.cleverley]

thats unbelievable! did u delete the partition as well? (7-10GB)?

No. I just reformatted as I have done many of times before on other computers just doing C Drive recovery. I can't believe this!

It's completely locked me out now. The awful thing is I didn't copy and paste my backed up stiff off my external harddrive I dragged and dropped so if I loose everything on this computer now everything I have is gone

[lisa.cleverley]

I've even entered in the product key number on the back of the computer and still says invalid This is more than upsetting. Bloody hell.

Off to phone Sony...

[Blencogo]

Sounds a bit worrying - Sony are probably your best bet although I expect you will be told to install ALL the programs and applications. It is possible with Vista that this is true.

I think something else is amiss - I don't think WGA would lock you out of your computer - perhaps it has not activated at all and it will obviously be outside the activation period of grace.

When are you able to put in a Product Key?

With the preinstalled OEM Operating System, you should NEVER be asked to put in a Product Key. The Product Key held in your Vaio IS NOT the one on the label on the back of your computer. The Product Key held inside your Vaio is the Sony OEM Key and is the same for everyone with the same model and OS as you.

I think if you phone Microsoft Activation Team and have the Key available from the back of the Vaio, they will activate it for you. They are nervous about piracy and you may just have to explain that you have performed a recovery of the Sony OEM System.

Can you get into your system at all? If you can then check that the file

C:\Windows\System32\wpa.dbl

is NOT marked as 'Read Only' in its Properties. This file is required for Activation of OEM systems and must be able to be written to. I can't remember if you need to boot into Safe Mode to change it or not! (wpa = Windows Product Activation).

[lisa.cleverley]

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies. I phoned Sony and he seemed stumped. He went away to speak to someone more 'techy' and they asked me to start windows in safe mode to see if I could get in at all (as normal mode there was nothing I could do at all. No windows button, nothing, couldn't even restart) so I had to force it to shutdown and start it in safe mode.

That worked and I was able to see my files. He told me to do system restore to a time before the update, which I did. Took ages to roll back so I said he could call me back and he explained what to do after restoring. To turn updates off, get my files then turn updates back on and see what happens. When it finally finished rolling back it was no use anyway as it still wouldn't let me in. So I started again in safe mode and plugged in external hard drive. Got all my files back on there and decided to reformat again.

Wasn't sure which to do so I called Sony again (yay for 0870 daytime peak :smileyplain:) I was advised to do complete recovery, which I did. Then once that had finished I forced Windows Update to do its thing. Wasn't going to take hours putting my stuff back again for it to tell me the same!! Have done that and now at the point where it's asking me to restart.

So far all 24 updates seem to have installed OK. Just worried now after restarting it's going to pull that cr*p on me again... Fingers crossed!

Will be back soon to post if everything went well.

Thanks,
Lisa

[MattWilson]

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies. I phoned Sony and he seemed stumped. He went away to speak to someone more 'techy' and they asked me to start windows in safe mode to see if I could get in at all (as normal mode there was nothing I could do at all. No windows button, nothing, couldn't even restart) so I had to force it to shutdown and start it in safe mode.

That worked and I was able to see my files. He told me to do system restore to a time before the update, which I did. Took ages to roll back so I said he could call me back and he explained what to do after restoring. To turn updates off, get my files then turn updates back on and see what happens. When it finally finished rolling back it was no use anyway as it still wouldn't let me in. So I started again in safe mode and plugged in external hard drive. Got all my files back on there and decided to reformat again.

Wasn't sure which to do so I called Sony again (yay for 0870 daytime peak :smileyplain:) I was advised to do complete recovery, which I did. Then once that had finished I forced Windows Update to do its thing. Wasn't going to take hours putting my stuff back again for it to tell me the same!! Have done that and now at the point where it's asking me to restart.

So far all 24 updates seem to have installed OK. Just worried now after restarting it's going to pull that cr*p on me again... Fingers crossed!

Will be back soon to post if everything went well.

Thanks,
Lisa

If it is installing updates then it must be genuine because it checks before you can download anything so your problem should be solved!

[kee-lo_]

This is uber-strange because usuallu it'll allow you to use Windows for 90 days then it'll stop. This is usually the demo period.

Virus possibly?

Have you tried recovering from the DVDs you made rather than the hard disk?

[lisa.cleverley]

Thanks for your replies. There wasn't any viruses or malware on the system before I reformatted. Or maybe there was but wasn't detectable. But I don't visit sites where they would download really, and Kaspersky seems great at warding stuff like that off.

Anyway, I did a complete recovery after backing up my info again in safe mode which allowed me to get at my files again and everything is great now. Did some back up CD's last night too so I'll restore to that if I ever need to in the future.

Sony said over the phone that it had something to do with AOL installed on the system. I don't even use AOL but I'm assuming might be something, part of the crap they put on new computers and comes back when you reformat so told me to do a complete recovery this time which should fix.. and it did.

Forced the computer to do updates immediately after reformatting and all went well. No locking out etc.

Thanks for your comments. Now resolved.. YAY! :smileygrin:

[kee-lo_]

AOL has a heck of a lot to answer to.